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346 ALMY ALOES 1866. He studied theology, and was for some time a teacher. Besides miscellaneous works, he published novels and poetry, including Torn- rosens Bole ("Book of the Rose"). Impli- cated in a case of poisoning in 1851, he fled to the United States, but went to Bremen in 1865. His works are very popular in Germany, where most of them have been translated. ALMY, William, an American philanthropist, born Feb. 17, 1761, died Feb. 5, 1836. He be- longed to the society of Friends, and was a public teacher. Having made a fortune in partnership with his brother-in-law, Obadiah Brown, in manufacturing cotton goods, he de- voted a large share of his wealth to charitable works, especially in Providence, R. I., where he lived. He endowed the New England yearly meeting boarding school at Providence, and paid for the education of 80 of its pupils. Al A V l( k, the county town of Northumber- land, England, on the river Alne, 30 m. N. of Newcastle; pop. about 8,000. It is well built, chiefly of stone, with broad, well paved streets, lighted with gas. It has a fine town hall, and a large square where weekly markets are held. The ancient castle of the same name, N. W. of the town, the residence of the duke of Northumberland, covers five acres of ground, and was restored in 1830 at an outlay of 200,- 000. It is built of freestone, in the Gothic style, and is one of the finest old baronial resi- dences in England. Alnwick castle formed one of the strongest bulwarks against the incur- sions of the Scots in ancient times, and was re- Alnwick Castle. peatedly besieged by them. Near its walls Malcolm III. of Scotland was slain in 1093, and his army routed ; and in 1174 William the Lion was defeated here at the head of a large army, and taken captive. ALOE, a genus of succulent plants belonging to the natural order liliacea and tribe asphode- lea, with long, fleshy, narrow, toothed leaves, growing in tropical countries. It has been di- vided into a variety of species, consisting of trees, shrubs, and evergreen herbaceous plants, which differ in height from a few inches to up- ward of 30 feet, and no less widely in the char- acter of their leaves and flowers. A large proportion of these different species have no medicinal properties, but are seen as objects of curiosity, in collections of succulent plants; while a few species are highly valued for the juice of their leaves, which forms the aloes of commerce. (See ALOES.) ALOE, American. See AGAVE. ALOES, the inspissated juice of the leaves of different species of aloe. Several varieties are known in commerce, some much superior in quality to others. Cape aloes, obtained from the aloe spicata, growing at the Cape of Good Hope, occurs in masses of a shining dark olive- green color, of a vitreous fracture, and trans- lucent at the edges ; the powder is of a green- ish yellow color, with a very disagreeable odor and intensely bitter taste. Barbadoes aloes is prepared in the West Indies, and is the prod- uct chiefly of the A. tulgaris. The color is a dark brown, not shining, and the odor is un- pleasant. Socotrine aloes, from the A. Soco- trina, occurs in pieces of a yellowish brown color, less shining than the Cape aloes ; the fracture is conchoidal, the odor aromatic, and the taste very bitter. This is much the most valuable variety, and the name is applied to parcels of aloes of good quality coming from other sources than the island of Socotra.